Corilyn Shropshire, Houston Chronicle, March 20, 2008
Asian women, fancy coffee, farmers markets, dinner parties and gay friends—these are just a sampling of life’s pleasures—if you’re white.
Excuse me?
That’s according to Christian Landers, the (white) wit behind the Web sensation Stuff White People Like blog, an irreverent daily missive on the passions of posh urbanites of the Caucasian persuasion.
{snip}
Readers, hundreds every day, flood the site’s comment section with alternating fury and delight.
To date, there have been 14 million hits, reflecting the nation’s current obsession with race and gender, too. For confirmation, check out the comments and speeches by presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton just this past week.
Dean Rader, a pop culture critic who authors weeklyrader.blogspot.com, says readers flock to Stuff White People Like because it’s hip and hot and the place to be seen and heard online. “It’s just as much about class and coolness and yuppiness and consumption (as race).”
And yes, if the some of the posts push far beyond the boundaries of good taste, readers seem to find liberation in an environment unfettered by political correctness.
Take #11 on the list: “Asian Girls: 95% of white males have at one point in their lives experienced yellow fever. . . . White men love Asian women so much that they will go to extremes such as stating that Sandra Oh is sexy, teaching English in Asia, playing in a co-ed volleyball league . . . “
{snip}
[No. 36:] “To a white person, there is no better way to spend a Saturday morning than to get up late, around 9:30 and pile into your Audi or Volvo and drive to one of these little places and eat breakfast with friends,” Landers writes. “Oftentimes these breakfasts last for an hour or more (hence the long lines and wait times). Some white people take it to the next level and bring their dogs, newspapers or even a laptop.”
Landers says the blog’s title has drawn more controversy than any of the posts. White people hate being lumped into a group that they don’t feel a part of, he says, adding, “that’s essentially the same thing that every minority has been dealing with for centuries.”
{snip}
[Editor’s Note: The blog “Stuff White People Like” can be read here.]
Original article
(Posted on March 20, 2008)
Comments
They should rename it to “Stuff guilt-stricken, suburb-dwelling white liberals Like”.
Posted by Obscuratus at 5:35 PM on March 20
I went to the website but I guess I am too old and “nonurban” to get excited by it.
Posted by RonnieBob at 6:02 PM on March 20
“Take #11 on the list: “Asian Girls: 95% of white males have at one point in their lives experienced yellow fever. “
Correction. White males who are racially healthy and racially loyal, might very well gaze at certain Asian ladies and be able to acknowledge one who is attractive and well proportioned. On the occasions when I have done this, and I’ve made a point of expressing my opinion to Asian males who I am friendly with - I say to myself or to them: “Now there is a nice looking Asian lady. She will be a fine catch for some lucky Asian male.”
In otherwords, I can appreciate beauty in other races who are not white - but I am respectful of the fact that those females are not mine to pursue. They are the females of another man’s tribe, and I respect the lines of demarkation and expect the same courtesy from males of other ethnic groups towards the women of my race.
And I would say this attitude is one that is bound to gain respect and appreciation from all ethnic groups, and it will certainly do three things that I feel are very worthwhile.
1. Eliminate hostility, bitterness, anger, and probably violence between ethnic groups.
2. Eliminate the possibility of ethnic group genocide of all groups who adopt this attitude.
3. Reestablish mutual respect for the customs, traditions, and cultural mores that have served all of man kind well for thousands of years.
Of course, this approach would be resoundingly booed and condemned by the usual suspects: the ADL, SPLC, mainstream media, etc. But then, these groups have an agenda that they’re concerned about - which is the extinction of White people
and so, they would wish to criminalize whites marrying only other whites.
If they could.
And, if we let them.
Posted by Luke at 6:56 PM on March 20
This blog is only two months old, and it has already made waves enough to catch the MSM’s attention. Something is stirring out there: A growing sense of Euro-American identity. Now lets see if it moves beyond good-natured humor, and finds its roots.
Posted by PBL at 7:09 PM on March 20
This is actually a pretty funny blog. It doesn’t so much make fun of white folks as it does send up upper middle class liberals, with their love of Starbucks, Whole Foods, and all things “outdoors”
Posted by Tony S at 7:16 PM on March 20
It strikes me as a fairly shallow “humor” site. No speculation about why the likes and dislikes of whites may be different than other races.
The site seems to be patterned after the old “yuppies” books or “Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche.” You could change the name to “Stuff Yuppies Like” and it would be just as insightful.
The most controversial statement I can see is the thing about white men’s attraction towards Asian women, a not-so-subtle put down of whites. The 95% figure, of course, is one they pulled out of the air.
Posted by Tim in Indiana at 9:10 PM on March 20
“Landers says the blog’s title has drawn more controversy than any of the posts. White people hate being lumped into a group that they don’t feel a part of, he says, adding, “that’s essentially the same thing that every minority has been dealing with for centuries.”
Landers obviously has a modern university education. There is nothing wrong with admitting there are distinctions between things that are distinct. And Whites have always seen themselves as belonging to certain groups. Whites are a much more diverse lot than blacks, who are overwhelmingly lower class and dysfunctional. You will find virtually no Whites who are embarrassed about identifying with a European ethnicity (even if they are very much removed), religion, class, profession, regional culture, or one of a myriad, or should I say diverse, collection of groups which tend to match their personalities and life aspirations. The term White, like the terms Asian or Hispanic, is so general it means little more than not black. The sheer fact of Whiteness is not necessarily the strongest distinction. An upper class educated White would much rather spend time with someone of that same class regardless of ethnic descent than spend time with a lower class White. Nevertheless, it is a shame that the term White has been reduced to meaning little more than not black. It should be a proud term subsuming the entire culture and achievements of what used to be called Christendom.
Mr. Landers marxist education comes through when he asserts that how one group may refer to another affects the life of someone in that group. If a White guy refers to a someone of Korean descent as an Asian, how exactly does that stop the Korean from being Korean, or doing anything at all?
Posted by Flamethrower at 10:15 PM on March 20
#101 White peoples worst enemy, other white people. This is best represented by……..
#8 Barack Obama - Because white people are afraid that if they don’t like him that they will be called racist.
#14 Having Black Friends - Every white person wants a black friend like Barack: good-looking, well-spoken, and non-violent. Obviously, whites want black friends so as not to appear racist.
#62 Knowing What’s Best for Poor (insert minority of your choice) People - It is a poorly guarded secret that, deep down, white people believe if given money and education that all poor (Black or Hispanic) people would be EXACTLY like them. In fact, the only reason that poor people make the choices they do is because they have not been given the means to make the right choices and care about the right things.
Posted by swimoutpassthebreakers at 12:44 AM on March 21
When someone uses the term “white people” (as opposed to whites or caucasians), it almost always indicates a humorous attitude.
Posted by Reader-1 at 12:57 AM on March 21
I read it for a while. It was sort of fun, but got repetitive. The large number of visitors says something you wont hear in the main stream media or in the universities. Whites are in glory at being able to speak the word “white” totally openly, repetitively, a lot, and with pleasure and fun. I have to admit that the site with so many visitors - 14 million hits - brings a pleasurable smile to my face.
Is this a spread of open expression of white identity into new areas of the population? Whoever would have thought that this would be one of the ways it would happen?
Posted by why at 3:53 AM on March 21
Christian Landers makes some good points in explaining why he set up the site. This is from the LA Times:
“Lander is gently making fun of the many progressive, educated, upper-middle-class whites who think they are beyond ethnicity or collectively shared tastes, styles or outlook. He’s essentially reminding them that they too are part of a group …
Lander is less concerned with cross-ethnic and racial relations than he is with how whites treat each other. As a onetime graduate student in the Midwest, he got tired of coastal condescension of the fly-over states and the glib assumption that “red staters are evil and stupid.”
“Too many white people don’t like to be reminded that they’re white. They like to think that white people are those evil corporate right-wingers or the uneducated masses who vote the wrong way. But ‘enlightened whites’ are white people too and have just as much of a group mentality as they think the red staters have.”“
More here
Posted by Mark Richardson at 4:18 AM on March 21
I thought it was funny because I know many people that fit the stereotypes: white people like diversity, having black friends, religion that their parents don’t belong to, divorce, YOUR culture, Asian girls, etc. If you know white people that fit those sterotypes, he/she should be ashamed of themself. They always looked like fools and now here it is on a blog for everyone to laugh about. It’s about time and I’m going to enjoy it!
Posted by at 6:58 AM on March 21
Maybe I am missing something. For some reason it is ok to assume what white people like as a whole but, not Africans? I guess it is because as white people we are typical. Remember white people. Vote typical white vote when voting in November. Let us show the Africans how the typical white people feel.
Posted by CWH at 7:49 AM on March 21
Mark Richardson above at 4:18 AM on March 21, posts a link to a long explanation given by the creator of the blog “Stuff White People Like”.
http://ozconservative.blogspot.com/2008/03/status-self-inflicted-decline.html
Whatever the creator’s reasons, the effect of the site is this. Or at least one of the effects. It is causing a radical transformation of the psychology of millions of people. The word “white” when referring to a category of people, had a psychologically impenetrable heaviness, darkness, fear - fear even to mumble the word in public. The site has done a jump in eroding that psychology, for millions.
Speaking more generally, we know that the other side of our fight has vast power - in congress, in the universities, and especially and horribly, in the mass media supporting these dark ideas about “white”.
However there is another thing that we are not as clearly aware of and we should be. There must be some characteristic of the human mind, outside of consciousness but which makes people in an iron manner resistant to even mumbling the word “white” in public. The site is eroding this thing whatever it is, in the minds of millions of visitors.
This thing’s erosion shouldn’t be looked on lightly, just whitely.
Posted by why at 8:05 AM on March 22
Funny, in a guilt-raddled white liberal sense.
A better site might be “Things White People Who Have Never Had Gay Or Black Friends and Don’t Feel They’re Missing Out On Anything Like.”
There was once a site I liked called “The Angry White Male Movie Reviewer.” Reading it was a pretty solid way to avoid the dogs Hollywood keeps churning out.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 1:12 PM on March 22
So 94% of white men like Asian women at some point in their life? HA HA HA…what a load of garbage. The majority of white men think white women are the most beautiful women in the world. This is pretty obvious. Number 11 shouldn’t have even made it on the blog. What gets me is the strange and quite noticeable minority of white men on this site (who are supposedly part of our cause) who prefer Asian women over white women. Hmmm.
Posted by Courtney at 4:03 PM on March 22
“So 94% of white men like Asian women at some point in their life? HA HA HA…what a load of garbage.”
This blog can’t be taken seriously as commentary on white people. It’s a sort of tongue-in-cheek satire, along the lines of http://www.blackpeopleloveus.com/. The fact that something which lampoons whites actually upsets non-whites demonstrates the general cluelessness of NWs. A site that can post something like
“To a white person, there is no better way to spend a Saturday morning than to get up late, around 9:30 and pile into your Audi or Volvo and drive to one of these little places and eat breakfast with friends,”
does not exactly recall the spirit of Thorstein Veblen or Raymond Aron.
Posted by Cassiodorus at 7:12 PM on March 22
I like things White people like. Classical Music, mountain climbing, computer programming. All have a vast majority of Whites as afficianados rather than “people of color”. Wonder why none of those made his list…
Posted by Jim S at 9:43 AM on March 23
